The Underdog Dentist Show - Dentistry, Dental Marketing Business Podcast from Gireesh Likhyani

How should leaders handle employee mistakes? When should you encourage experimentation, when should you demand accountability, and when does a repeated mistake become an attitude problem?In Season 6, Episode 12 of The Underdog Dentist Show, Dr. Gireesh Likhyani and Dr. Nikhil Malhotra discuss how we manage mistakes, failures, accountability, and employee discipline while building teams at Likhyani Healthcare Solutions in India and Likhyani Group in Singapore.Every growing business makes mistakes. But not every mistake deserves the same response.Some mistakes are part of creativity, experimentation, and innovation. Others reveal gaps in basic skills, communication, accountability, or professional discipline.As founders and managers, how do we distinguish between them?What we discuss in this episode:Acceptable vs unacceptable mistakes: Why mistakes during creative experimentation can help teams improve, while failures involving fundamental job responsibilities require a different response.Building a culture of experimentation: How leaders can encourage people to try new ideas without creating an environment where employees fear making mistakes.Accountability and ownership: Why accepting responsibility, acknowledging mistakes, and actively working towards solutions matter more than simply avoiding failure.Reporting and documenting mistakes: How we use Slack for timely communication and Notion to document errors, maintain records, and prevent repeated problems.Repeated mistakes and performance issues: When recurring errors indicate problems with training, understanding, expectations, or an employee's approach to work.Employee discipline and workplace attitude: Why missed deadlines, ignoring instructions, and repeated disciplinary issues require serious attention.Empathy in leadership: How personal circumstances, workload, individual capabilities, and unclear expectations can affect employee performance.When should a founder let someone go? Why immediately firing an employee or relying only on formal warnings may overlook opportunities to understand and resolve the underlying problem.Building a stronger company culture: How accountability, flexibility, empathy, and clear expectations influence the people and systems behind a growing business.Should employees be punished for making mistakes?Our discussion explores why the answer depends on the nature of the mistake, its consequences, and how the individual responds.We believe experimentation should be encouraged, but accountability cannot disappear.A creative failure can become a learning opportunity. A repeated mistake needs investigation. And persistent disciplinary problems may require difficult decisions.We also discuss why understanding an employee's circumstances matters before deciding how to respond.Who should listen?Founders, entrepreneurs, business owners, startup leaders, HR professionals, team managers, healthcare entrepreneurs, clinic owners, and anyone responsible for managing people.Whether you lead a remote team, a healthcare organisation, or a growing company, this conversation offers practical perspectives on employee accountability, performance management, leadership, and workplace culture.The goal is not to build a team that never makes mistakes. It is to build a team that takes responsibility, learns, improves, and grows together.Listen to the full episode of The Underdog Dentist Show and share it with someone building or managing a team.Subscribe for more conversations about business leadership, employee management, healthcare entrepreneurship, company culture, team productivity, and building businesses across India and Singapore.

The National Medical Commission (NMC) has issued new medical advertising guidelines in India, dated 6 October 2026. What do these rules mean for doctors, dentists, hospitals, and healthcare marketing agencies?Are patient testimonials still allowed? What about before and after photographs, Google Ads, social media marketing, AI generated content, and claims such as "best doctor" or "100% success"?In Season 6, Episode 11 of The Underdog Dentist Show, Dr. Gireesh Likhyani discusses the NMC Advertising Guidelines 2026, explaining what the notice says about ethical medical advertising, patient privacy, digital marketing, professional conduct, and public communication.What we discuss in this episode:What counts as medical advertising? How the NMC defines promotional communication across websites, social media, search engines, WhatsApp, podcasts, influencers, and digital platforms.Mandatory disclosures: Requirements concerning doctors' names, qualifications, registration status, and medical registration numbers in electronic communications.Patient testimonials and before and after photographs: Restrictions on patient reviews, endorsements, clinical images, treatment results, and promotional patient stories. Why consent alone may not make otherwise prohibited advertising permissible.Prohibited and restricted advertising claims: Phrases such as "best doctor," "number one specialist," "painless treatment," "guaranteed cure," and "100% success," along with conditions for using professional rankings and awards.AI generated healthcare advertising: What the guidelines say about AI promotional campaigns, synthetic endorsements, misleading clinical representations, disclosure requirements, and patient data protection.Healthcare marketing agencies and influencers: Restrictions involving patient procurement, referral fees, payments linked to individual patients, misleading digital engagement, and practitioners' responsibility for authorised advertising.What doctors and hospitals can still communicate: Health education, public awareness, research, academic discussions, factual information about facilities and services, professional qualifications, and transparent disclosure of charges.Penalties and enforcement: The guidelines' disciplinary framework, including warnings, ethics training, monetary penalties, suspension of registration, and appeals.Does this mean doctors must stop marketing their practices?Not necessarily.The distinction between factual healthcare information, patient education, and prohibited promotional activity is central to understanding the guidelines.We also discuss why healthcare professionals should review their existing websites, social media content, promotional claims, patient testimonials, and marketing agency agreements.Who should listen?Doctors, dentists, clinic owners, hospital administrators, healthcare entrepreneurs, medical content creators, and healthcare marketing professionals in India.If you are responsible for medical advertising, healthcare digital marketing, or patient communication, this episode explores the regulatory questions you need to understand.The objective is not to stop healthcare communication. It is to understand how to communicate responsibly within the applicable rules.Listen to the full episode of The Underdog Dentist Show for a detailed discussion of the NMC Advertising Guidelines 2026 and their implications for healthcare marketing in India.Official source: National Medical Commission, Guidelines on Ethical Advertising and Public Communication, dated 6 October 2026.Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult the official NMC notice and qualified professionals for guidance on specific circumstances.Subscribe to The Underdog Dentist Show for discussions on healthcare marketing, NMC guidelines, medical advertising regulations, AI in healthcare, and the business of healthcare.

How do you build a team that can think, research, solve problems, learn from mistakes, and improve without constantly waiting for instructions?In this episode of The Underdog Dentist Show, Dr. Girish Likhani and Dr. Nikhil Malhotra discuss how we approach learning, curiosity, research, problem solving, AI, mentorship, documentation, mistakes, and feedback inside Likhani Healthcare Solutions India and Likhani Group Singapore.For us, learning begins with curiosity.But curiosity does not mean immediately asking someone else for the answer.We discuss why team members should first attempt to understand a problem, research it, explore possible solutions, and then ask better questions when they genuinely need help.That also means creating an environment where people are allowed to make mistakes.If you expect people to experiment and solve unfamiliar problems independently, mistakes become part of that learning process. Dr. Nikhil also discusses the other side of this equation: people may hesitate to ask questions because they fear being judged or reprimanded, which makes the environment created by managers important. Pasted textThen we get into AI and research.AI can make research significantly easier, but it can also produce information that needs verification. In the episode, we discuss why the person using an LLM still needs to examine sources, look for current information when the subject changes rapidly, investigate arguments on different sides, and trace important claims back to reliable sources.The objective is not simply to ask AI for an answer.It is to use AI as part of a better research process while keeping human judgment in command. Pasted textWe also discuss mentorship and documentation.Research becomes more valuable when what the team learns is properly documented. That knowledge can then help other team members, departments, and future employees rather than disappearing when one task is completed. Pasted textFinally, we discuss something every manager and employee deals with:feedback.How do you give critical feedback without making it personal?And how do you receive feedback without attaching your own worth to the outcome of one project?Our evolving approach is to separate the person from the task.Feedback about a project should focus on the project. Broader feedback about someone's attitude, aptitude, communication, or behaviour deserves its own conversation rather than being attached to every individual mistake. Pasted textIf you are a founder, healthcare entrepreneur, clinic owner, manager, team leader, or someone responsible for developing people, this episode explores how we are trying to build a culture where people do more than execute instructions.They learn how to think.Listen to the complete episode of The Underdog Dentist Show.Subscribe for conversations around employee learning and development, team management, leadership, AI research, problem solving, workplace culture, employee feedback, healthcare management, entrepreneurship, and building scalable teams.

AI can now access patient medical records through authorized healthcare integrations. But who controls that access, what can AI actually do with the information, and what does this mean for doctors, hospitals, and patients?In Season 6, Episode 9 of The Underdog Dentist Show, Dr. Gireesh Likhyani explores an important development in AI in healthcare: the integration of artificial intelligence with electronic health records (EHR), patient medical histories, clinical notes, laboratory results, and other health information.For years, AI could answer medical questions without knowing much about the individual patient. Connecting AI to authorized health records introduces a different level of context.And it opens two important doors.The first is for healthcare professionals.We discuss how AI assistants can help clinicians review medical records, summarize patient histories, interpret information, and identify changes across clinical documentation.The episode also explores the importance of read only access, existing clinical permissions, human oversight, and organizational control over these integrations.The second is for patients.Patients can increasingly connect health information to AI tools, potentially bringing AI generated summaries, laboratory interpretations, and more detailed questions into their consultations.What happens when a patient arrives having already discussed their medical records with AI?How should doctors respond when an AI summary is incomplete or incorrect?And how does the role of the clinician change when patients have greater access to information before the appointment?We also discuss the technology and governance behind these developments, including healthcare data interoperability, EHR integration, patient data privacy, access permissions, data retention, AI model training policies, and audit trails.Most importantly, we explore six practical considerations for healthcare organizations:Identify who controls AI integrations within your organization.Prepare for patients who arrive with AI generated health information.Develop a consistent approach to reviewing AI summaries.Understand how AI may influence healthcare information discovery.Establish clear internal policies for AI access and patient data.Monitor changes in what connected AI systems are authorized to do.For doctors, dentists, hospital administrators, healthcare entrepreneurs, pharmaceutical professionals, and healthcare technology leaders, this episode examines how AI integration with medical records could change clinical workflows, patient communication, healthcare operations, and organizational responsibility.The bigger question is not simply whether AI can read a medical record.It is who controls that access, who remains accountable, and where human clinical judgment fits into the process.Listen to the complete episode of The Underdog Dentist Show.Subscribe for conversations about AI in healthcare, healthcare technology, healthcare marketing, medical practice management, digital health, healthcare automation, and the business of healthcare.

How do you make better business decisions?Do you trust the data, follow your intuition, ask AI, or combine all three?In this episode of The Underdog Dentist Show, Dr. Girish Likhani and Dr. Nikhil Malhotra discuss how we approach data driven decision making, business intelligence, AI, team autonomy, and speed inside Likhani Healthcare Solutions India and Likhani Group Singapore.We have seen an important problem while working with clinics, hospitals, pharmaceutical brands, and other healthcare businesses: sometimes the data required to make a decision was never properly collected in the first place.Without reliable data, decisions can quickly become based on instinct.Should we increase the marketing budget?Should we stop a campaign?Should we hire another team member?Should we reduce costs?Should we invest more in SEO, AI optimization, paid marketing, or PR?Should the business expand into another market?These decisions require more than simply asking what feels right.In this episode, we discuss a simple process we use around data: collection, segregation, analysis, and application.But collecting more data does not automatically produce better decisions.You also need to understand which metrics actually matter, why they are being measured, whether the information is complete, and whether the data can genuinely help you move toward the desired business outcome. Pasted textWe also discuss the role of AI in business decision making.AI and large language models can help organize, analyze, segregate, and interpret information. But our approach is that consequential business decisions still require human judgment, particularly when relationships, company culture, financial realities, future plans, and other contextual factors are involved. Pasted textThen comes another challenge: autonomy.If every decision requires the founder, the organization eventually creates a bottleneck.We discuss why team members should understand the goal, interpret the relevant data, identify problems, suggest solutions, and increasingly take responsibility for decisions within their areas of expertise.Finally, we talk about something I personally value heavily:Speed.Making good decisions matters.But as an organization grows, the ability to create a decision making process that can be repeated efficiently also becomes important.Our approach is to improve the quality of the decision process first and then work on increasing its speed. Pasted textIf you are a founder, healthcare entrepreneur, clinic owner, hospital leader, pharmaceutical professional, manager, marketer, or business owner, this episode explores how data, AI, human judgment, autonomy, and speed interact when important business decisions need to be made.Listen to the complete episode of The Underdog Dentist Show.Subscribe for conversations around data driven decision making, business strategy, AI in business, healthcare management, leadership, business intelligence, healthcare marketing, entrepreneurship, and building scalable organizations.

How can doctors use AI without making healthcare feel less human?Patients are already using AI to understand symptoms, prepare questions, make sense of health information, and learn more before and after appointments.So the opportunity for healthcare practices is not simply to compete with AI.It is to use technology to build a stronger relationship with patients.In this episode of The Underdog Dentist Show, Dr. Girish Likhani explores how doctors, dentists, clinics, and healthcare practices can use AI and automation to improve patient communication, patient engagement, and the overall patient experience while keeping the human relationship at the centre.We look at an important tension in healthcare AI: patients may be curious about AI and willing to use it, while still wanting human involvement when their health decisions become more meaningful or sensitive.That creates an opportunity for healthcare practices.Instead of trying to replace the doctor patient relationship with technology, what happens if technology extends that relationship beyond the consultation?We explore four practical applications:Helping patients prepare before an appointmentGiving patients clear information after their visit based on the clinician’s instructionsAnswering routine questions around procedures, medications, preparation, and recoveryCreating simple patient check ins after treatmentBut technology alone is not enough.The episode also explores why accuracy, authenticity, tone, transparency, privacy, and human escalation matter when introducing AI into patient communication.An automated message can still sound like your practice.A routine interaction can still feel personal.And technology can still have clear boundaries around what it should and should not do.We discuss why AI used for patient communication should educate rather than diagnose, clearly communicate its limitations, collect only the information genuinely required, and provide a clear route back to a human whenever the situation becomes urgent, sensitive, or difficult to understand.There is also a larger business question behind this.As AI increasingly becomes part of how people discover and interact with healthcare information, how do independent healthcare practices maintain a direct relationship with their patients?The answer may not be building more technology.It may be making sure that when technology is involved, your voice, your guidance, and your relationship with the patient remain visible.If you are a doctor, dentist, clinic owner, hospital leader, healthcare entrepreneur, or healthcare marketer, this episode offers a practical framework for thinking about AI for doctors, AI for clinics, patient engagement, patient experience, healthcare automation, and the future of patient communication.Listen to the complete episode of The Underdog Dentist Show.Subscribe for conversations around AI in healthcare, healthcare marketing, patient experience, patient engagement, healthcare technology, clinic growth, automation, and the business of healthcare.

How do you manage a remote team without turning remote work into constant meetings, endless messages, and micromanagement?In this episode of The Underdog Dentist Show, Dr. Girish Likhani and Dr. Nikhil Malhotra take you inside the systems we use to manage communication, documentation, meetings, accountability, and everyday operations at Likhani Healthcare Solutions India and Likhani Group Singapore.We are a remote first team working across different locations and time zones. That makes one thing particularly important: communication needs a system.We discuss why we use Slack for internal communication and Notion for documentation and task management, why we deliberately keep professional conversations away from WhatsApp, and why documenting work becomes even more important when your team isn't sitting together in one office. Pasted textBut tools are only part of the conversation.We talk about the systems behind them.How quickly should someone respond during working hours?Does every problem deserve a meeting?What should have simply been a message?Who owns the documentation after a meeting?How do you keep track of decisions and action items?And how do you give people autonomy without losing visibility over what is happening across the company?We also discuss our approach to daily meetings and why face to face communication still has a role inside a remote company. For us, these conversations are not only about task updates. They create an opportunity for team members to discuss challenges, ideas, feedback, improvements, and what they believe should change inside the organization. Pasted textOne principle sits underneath much of this episode:If something could have been a message, it probably didn't need a meeting.And when someone encounters a problem, our expectation is not to immediately pass that problem to somebody else. We encourage people to first understand it, analyze it, attempt to solve it, and then seek help when collaboration is genuinely required. Pasted textThis episode is an inside look at the operating culture we are building while growing two organizations across India and Singapore.If you're a founder, healthcare entrepreneur, clinic owner, agency owner, manager, team leader, or someone managing a remote team, this conversation explores how communication, documentation, meetings, autonomy, and problem solving can become part of the operating system of a company.Listen the complete episode of The Underdog Dentist Show.Subscribe for conversations around remote team management, remote work, company culture, leadership, team communication, productivity, business systems, healthcare management, entrepreneurship, and building scalable organizations.

AI is changing how patients search for healthcare.For years, a patient with a symptom might have searched online, called a clinic, asked a friend, or contacted their doctor. Now another option is entering that journey: asking an AI assistant.In this episode of The Underdog Dentist Show, Dr. Girish Likhani explores what this shift could mean for patient acquisition, healthcare marketing, independent clinics, doctors, dentists, and the digital patient journey. The important question isn't simply whether AI can answer healthcare questions.It is what happens when AI becomes the first point of contact between a patient and healthcare.The episode explores the idea of the digital front door in healthcare: the place a patient goes before making an appointment, choosing a provider, requesting a prescription, asking about a laboratory result, or deciding what to do next.Search engines historically gave patients multiple results and allowed them to choose where to go next. Conversational AI creates a different experience. It can provide an answer directly and, as these systems gain additional capabilities, potentially help patients take the next action as well. That creates an important business question for healthcare practices:Who owns the relationship before the patient reaches your clinic?We discuss why this could matter particularly for independent doctors, dentists, clinics, and healthcare practices that have traditionally competed through reputation, referrals, proximity, and long term patient relationships.The episode also looks at lessons from industries such as hotels, transportation, and food delivery, where platforms increasingly became intermediaries between businesses and their customers.Most importantly, we get practical.We discuss six areas healthcare practices can start working on:Building direct communication channels with patientsAnswering common patient questions through useful contentMaking appointment booking easierKeeping essential practice information accurate across digital platformsBuilding a recognizable personal brand around doctors and foundersTracking where new patients actually discover the practiceThe objective isn't to compete with AI on technology.It is to make sure your relationship with patients remains strong enough that your practice is not simply another option presented by somebody else's platform.If you're a doctor, dentist, clinic owner, hospital leader, healthcare entrepreneur, or healthcare marketer, this episode explores an important question about the future of healthcare discovery:When a patient needs help, who will they ask first?Listen to the complete episode of The Underdog Dentist Show.Subscribe for conversations around AI in healthcare, healthcare marketing, patient acquisition, digital health, healthcare technology, patient experience, clinic growth, and the business of healthcare.

Hiring the right people is one of the hardest parts of building a business. But should you hire someone primarily for their technical skills, experience, attitude, or their potential to become a leader?In this episode of The Underdog Dentist Show, Dr. Girish Likhani and Dr. Nikhil Malhotra discuss how our approach to hiring, leadership, accountability, and team building has evolved inside Likhani Healthcare Solutions India and Likhani Group Singapore. We explore why hiring someone simply to fill a position can create problems later, and why we increasingly look for people who can take responsibility, solve problems, challenge ideas, learn quickly, and eventually operate with genuine ownership.But identifying those qualities during an interview is difficult.Can you really determine whether someone is responsible from a single interview?Can you identify leadership potential before working with someone?How much importance should you give technical skills versus attitude?Should probation be considered part of the hiring process?And what separates an employee who constantly waits for instructions from someone who can eventually lead?We also discuss how our own hiring philosophy has changed as the companies have grown.In the earlier years, adaptability, learning ability, and performing under pressure mattered heavily. Today, the conversation goes deeper into leadership qualities, honesty, accountability, problem solving, communication, proactive ownership, and growth mindset. The episode also explores an interesting hiring problem: people pleasing.You need people who can disagree with leadership, point out problems, and communicate honestly. But honesty without communication skills, professionalism, or respect creates an entirely different problem.Finding the balance matters.Beyond hiring, we discuss the kind of workplace this philosophy creates: giving people room to experiment, allowing creativity to take time, reducing unnecessary urgency, building trust within teams, and creating an environment where people can solve problems before immediately escalating them.If you're a founder, healthcare entrepreneur, clinic owner, hospital leader, manager, team leader, or business owner building a team, this episode offers our perspective on hiring people who can grow with the organization rather than simply work for it.Because the question isn't only:Can this person do the job?The better question may be:Can this person eventually lead it?Listen to the complete episode of The Underdog Dentist Show.Subscribe for conversations around hiring, leadership, healthcare management, team building, employee productivity, workplace culture, healthcare marketing, entrepreneurship, and building scalable businesses.

AI tools are entering clinics, hospitals, healthcare businesses, and front desk workflows. But what actually happens when someone puts patient data into an AI tool?In this episode of The Underdog Dentist Show, Dr. Gireesh Likhyani explores AI patient data privacy, healthcare data protection, AI vendor agreements, voice AI, and the risks healthcare businesses can overlook when adopting artificial intelligence.The problem isn't always the AI itself.Sometimes, it is the agreement behind it.We discuss why healthcare professionals need to understand what happens to patient information after it enters an AI system, including questions around transcripts, recordings, metadata, aggregated data, derived data, retention, training, and third party providers. We also look at an increasingly important area for clinics and healthcare businesses: AI voice agents.As AI is used for appointment booking, patient reminders, reception, and follow up calls, healthcare businesses need to think carefully about recordings, storage, access, retention, disclosure, escalation to humans, and how vendors handle the information collected during those conversations. Most importantly, this episode gives you six questions to ask an AI vendor before allowing their technology to interact with patient information:Is our data used for AI training?What exactly does the vendor define as data?Which underlying providers and subprocessors have access?How long is the information retained, and can it be deleted?What formal data agreement governs its use?Who inside your organization is actually authorized to use the technology?If you're a doctor, dentist, clinic owner, hospital leader, healthcare entrepreneur, healthcare marketer, or someone responsible for introducing AI into healthcare workflows, this episode is for you.AI adoption does not have to mean careless adoption.The objective is to understand where patient information goes, who can access it, what vendors are permitted to do with it, and where responsibility sits inside your own organization.Listen to the complete episode of The Underdog Dentist Show.Subscribe for conversations around AI in healthcare, patient data privacy, healthcare technology, healthcare marketing, healthcare AI, business, and digital transformation.